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ProQuest History Vault: U.S. Diplomatic Post Records, 1914-1945

The Penn Libraries have acquired U.S. Diplomatic Post Records, 1914-1945, a large collection of digitized U.S. State Department documents on Central American and Middle Eastern countries, Japan,a nd the Soviet Union from between the two world wars.

U.S. Diplomatic Post Records reproduces records kept at U.S. diplomatic posts in foreign countries, including instructions and despatches between the State Department and the post, correspondence with the host country’s government, and communications with subordinate posts. These records are now held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration as part of NARA Record Group 84. Preserved diplomatic post records generally fall into these categories:

Protection of Interests

Claims

International Congresses and Conferences

Commerce and Commercial Relations / Trade relations

Relations of States

Internal Affairs of States (omitting visa applications)

For diplomatic post records dating 1936-1945, documents on the diplomatic branch, embassies and legations were also preserved.

Subcollections within U.S. Diplomatic Post Records are searchable individually. They have been digitized from microfilm reproductions produced by University Publications of America. Subcollections covered are:

The new acquisition is complemented by another recent acquisition, U.S. Military Intelligence Reports, 1911-1944, which reproduces documents from U.S. military attaches assigned to U.S. diplomatic posts. Both of these collections are provided through the ProQuest History Vault interface, which offers searchable fulltext and PDF downloading.